In steel rolling mills and other places where large heavy rolls are handled, the rolls are most often moved using large heavy-duty lift trucks equipped with a generally horizontal "ram" unit. One example of such a ram unit for a lift truck is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,005,793, entitled Ram For Lift Truck and issued in the name of Robert L. Smith. Commercial lift trucks employing rams have been made by Elwell-Parker, Yale, Autolift and Clark Equipment Corp.
Unfortunately, in practice, such ram lift trucks often are used or misused so as to dent or damage the rolls when they are loaded onto the ram. This is often the result of the operator driving the ram in at angle and at too high of a speed so as to cause the side edge of the coil to be hit and dented by the front of the lift truck. Such dents often go undetected until well after the damage has been done, making it difficult to effectively manage truck operation and prevent the problem. The dented steel roll often has to be rerolled to remove the dent or have the portion of the roll bearing the dent cut off and scrapped--a costly solution, in either case.